Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Best SEO-friendly CMS platform?
-
I have been tasked with rebuilding a small e-commerce website using a CMS, but I'm not sure which one has the most SEO compatibility. One SEO company recommended Squarespace. Another warned me against Squarespace because of its limited SEO features and instead recommended Wordpress with the WooCommerce toolkit. I've also heard Drupal and Joomla mentioned. Are certain CMS platforms more SEO-friendly? If so, what are the best ones that can also handle e-commerce?
Thanks!
-
I'm also going to recommend WordPress. It's big, battle-tested, and relatively easy to set up and use. They also get security updates out quickly, and your site will auto-patch itself if the security update is critical enough. Non-crucial updates are also very simple to install, (click a few things in a web interface).
For the E-commerce part, WooCommerce is the big guy in the room. I'm also happy with WP e-Commerce, (disclosure: I contribute to its development sometimes), if Woo doesn't work for you. Shopify just launched WordPress integration as well, if that's more up your alley.
As for SEO: Yoast SEO will do a ton. Also, if you really like code you can make WordPress output markup in pretty much whatever way you want without sacrificing the upgradability I started with, so if you're willing to go deep enough, it's, (to me, a WP fan), the perfect CMS.
-
I'd have to 3rd the wordpress suggestion, if you had a big site with lots of pages and a involved user portal then Drupal would be the goto suggestion. But if it's a smaller site, no need to deal with the issues of a huge site if you don't need to.
Joomla isn't bad, and can be managed but unless you're a webdev you'll want access to info and scripts and by far the most popular choice is wordpress.
Just make sure you do a thorough product audit so you can reduce the overall amount of product before you put them online, this will help SEO drastically, since you'll have less pages that users would draw attention to that don't work too well.
-
I suggest WooCommerce, which is a free WordPress plugin and one of the fastest growing shopping carts. Many small business used WooCommerce for their online store. They recognized that it allows them manage site with simplicity and SEO friendly. It is difficult to say that WooCommerce is the best SEO friendly CMS platform. However, I think it is a good solution for small business because of cheap cost and effectiveness.
If you are sure about WooCommerce and WordPress, you should try WooCommerce migration tool by Litextension to convert to new site with keeping SEO URLs. Check it: http://litextension.com/woocommerce-migration-tools.html
-
By far the most SEO-friendly platform overall is going to be Wordpress.
While other platforms can be made to do what Wordpress does, almost a quarter of websites online are powered by Wordpress which gives it a huge community to draw resources and information from.
I don't mind Joomla (i'm the one guy, I know) and I have friends who prefer Drupal or other things for security reasons (the biggest always gets attacked most, right?) but Wordpress has Yoast SEO plugin and that is a huge help.
I have a few ecomm stores online and I use Woocommerce with Wordpress for most. I have a Magento store but ... shew. It's so much harder, it's so much more resource intense and it's not as good for anything unless you're a developer.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Woocommerce SEO and Product attributes
Hi friends! I have a question that is advanced Woocommerce and seo-related.
Web Design | | JustinMurray
I'm seeing http://www.mywebsitex.com/pa_keyword/indexed in Google, but it cannot be properly optimized, and I would prefer to have a WordPress Page indexed for that keyword instead, which also lists those products and can be fully seo optimized. Woocommerce SEO plugin by Yoast lacks documentation and I have no clue if that would even fix this. I do have the Taxonomy (pa_keyword) set to not include these in the sitemap, but there doesn't seem to be a way to noindex/nofollow product attributes.
1. How can I best accomplish this?
2. Why are product attributes indexed by default?0 -
Best practice for multilanguage website ( PHP feature based on Browser or Geolocalisation)
Hi Moz Experts I would like to know what does it the best practice for multilanguage website for the default language ? There are several PHP features to help users to get the right language when they come from SEO and direct; present the default language by browser language, by gelolocalisation, etc. However, which one is the most appropriate for Quebec company that try to get outside Canada ? PRO and CONS. Thank you in advance.
Web Design | | johncurlee0 -
Lots of Listing Pages with Thin Content on Real Estate Web Site-Best to Set them to No-Index?
Greetings Moz Community: As a commercial real estate broker in Manhattan I run a web site with over 600 pages. Basically the pages are organized in the following categories: 1. Neighborhoods (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/neighborhoods/midtown-manhattan) 25 PAGES Low bounce rate 2. Types of Space (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/commercial-space/loft-space)
Web Design | | Kingalan1
15 PAGES Low bounce rate. 3. Blog (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/blog/how-long-does-leasing-process-take
30 PAGES Medium/high bounce rate 4. Services (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/brokerage-services/relocate-to-new-office-space) High bounce rate
3 PAGES 5. About Us (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/about-us/what-we-do
4 PAGES High bounce rate 6. Listings (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/listings/305-fifth-avenue-office-suite-1340sf)
300 PAGES High bounce rate (65%), thin content 7. Buildings (Example:http://www.nyc-officespace-leader.com/928-broadway
300 PAGES Very high bounce rate (exceeding 75%) Most of the listing pages do not have more than 100 words. My SEO firm is advising me to set them "No-Index, Follow". They believe the thin content could be hurting me. Is this an acceptable strategy? I am concerned that when Google detects 300 pages set to "No-Follow" they could interpret this as the site seeking to hide something and penalize us. Also, the building pages have a low click thru rate. Would it make sense to set them to "No-Follow" as well? Basically, would it increase authority in Google's eyes if we set pages that have thin content and/or low click thru rates to "No-Follow"? Any harm in doing this for about half the pages on the site? I might add that while I don't suffer from any manual penalty volume has gone down substantially in the last month. We upgraded the site in early June and somehow 175 pages were submitted to Google that should not have been indexed. A removal request has been made for those pages. Prior to that we were hit by Panda in April 2012 with search volume dropping from about 7,000 per month to 3,000 per month. Volume had increased back to 4,500 by April this year only to start tanking again. It was down to 3,600 in June. About 30 toxic links were removed in late April and a disavow file was submitted with Google in late April for removal of links from 80 toxic domains. Thanks in advance for your responses!! Alan0 -
From Google Sites to Wordpress - Anyone Ventured this SEO terrain?
We have a few sites in Google Sites - and they are ugly! We have a majority (40+) of websites in Wordpress. But we have a few websites just stuck on Google Sites, and since Google won't let you fully edit the HTML, add scripts, or implement any technology since 2000, we want to move. The sad problem - the Google sites are ranking well. We rank well in Manhattan, Atlanta, Dallas, and Philadelphia. The problem is - the sites do not give much room for growth - and the bounce rate is high because they are so ugly. Has Anyone moved from Google sites to Wordpress? Should we just stay with Google and bite the ugly bullet? My fear is that these sites will not allow for growth. It is hard to update them and even harder to make them look nice. To get a sample - beware: www.counselingphiladelphia.com Even another reason to leave: The slider is non-semantic and terrible SEO. Google won't allow a slider script with tags and a hrefs, so the only way to implement a slider is through a Google Docs Presentation that keeps sliding. I know - terrible SEO (#donthate) but we needed something. Any advice and thoughts would help! Thanks Mozzers!
Web Design | | _Thriveworks0 -
Best Practice issue: Modx vs Wordpress
Lately I've been working a lot with Modx to create a new site for our own firm as well for other projects. But so far I haven't seen the advantages for SEO purposes other then the fact that with ModX you can manage almost everything yourself including snippets etc without to much effort. Wordpress is a known factor for blogging and since the last 2 years or so for websites. My question is: Which platform is better suited for SEO purposes? Which should I invest my time in? ModX or Wordpress? Hope to hear your thought on the matter
Web Design | | JarnoNijzing0 -
Html 5 main and secondary navigation for SEO best performances
I am building a website which will have a main navigation related to the site and each link of the main navigation will have a secondary navigation. We do not want to use a megamenu style navigation. I will try to explain it with a example: Let's start with an example for a computer store "My PC Store", the Main Navigation would be: Desktop PC's Notebook & Tablets
Web Design | | netbuilder
Multimedia When clicking on the "Notebook & Tablets" the user is directed to the page domain.com/notebook-tablet.html and on this page the secondary navigation appears: Laptop Netbook Tablets / iPad I am confused on how I should organize the semantic navigation for best SEO performances and I need advice / suggestions. I thought about 2 different ways to do it but which one is more appropriate in terms of SEO? PROPOSITION A Home Page: <header> My PC Store <nav> Desktop PC's Notebook & Tablets Multimedia </nav> </header> Sub-Page (Notebook & Tablets): <nav>(or <aside>?) Desktop PC's Notebook & Tablets Multimedia </aside> </nav> <header> Notebook & Tablets <nav> Laptop Netbook Tablets / iPad </nav> </header> As you notice on the home page the Main Site Navigation is included in the <header>while it is not in the sub-pages. PROPOSITION B Home Page: <header> My PC Store <nav> Desktop PC's Notebook & Tablets Multimedia </nav> </header> Sub-Page (Notebook & Tablets): <header> Notebook & Tablets <nav> Desktop PC's Notebook & Tablets Multimedia </nav> # Notebook & Tablets * Laptop Netbook Tablets / iPad </header> The main navgation remains always in the <header>(home page / sub-pages) of all page. I need suggestions... How would you guys organize the nav ? </header> </header>0 -
Javascript, PhP and SEO Impact?
What are the Pro's and Con's of using Java Script and PHP in a site when factoring in SEO?
Web Design | | bronxpad0 -
What CMS system is best?
Hi Guys, I am in the process of developing some new areas of work and a good CMS is going to be required to make my SEO and everything included work to its best. What CMS systems are the best ones to use from an SEO prospective and generally all round? Thanks
Web Design | | wazza19850